


Lucky You

by JazzRaft



Series: Festive Food Fluffs [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Festivals, Fluff, Food, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 11:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13926702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Springtime in Galahd is all about fresh starts. The fridges get emptied and the stomachs get filled. A kitchen harvest to carry through the year.





	Lucky You

“Try some.”

“Nyx, if I try one more thing, it’s going to end up on your shoes.”

“Are you saying my cooking makes you sick? Well, we had a good run, babe, but I think it’s time for us to see different people.”

“As if you could find anybody else that could stomach you.”

Nyx smirked, dipping his voice beneath the merry buzz of a dozen more to intone a few comments of which were not in the least bit appropriate for any dinner table. Noctis took another generous sip of his drink to calm the butterflies in his belly and resisted the urge to punch some sense of moral decency into Nyx.

He couldn’t really fault him for his exuberance though. Nyx was always more excitable when he got to visit home. Between the anticipation of seeing old friends and family, all those first, fresh lungs full of Galahdian air coming off the ferry, and the frenzy of food pouring onto the table once they arrived to the little bungalow, Noctis was more than a little exhilarated by the whole experience himself.

The drink helped. It was a warm punch of all different sorts of citrus juices and some sort-of-secret spices (“the last of whatever was sitting around in my fridge,” Granny Ostium had said.) It had been doing wonders for him all afternoon, a concoction crafted purely to aid guests into eating far more than they ever would have expected to otherwise. And he really hadn’t expected to fit nearly as much food as he ultimately did in his stomach once he’d seen just how full the family table had been.

Skewers of every kind – classic semur skewers with their traditional green sauce, crispy zu tenders and broiled trout fillets, spicy midgardsormr, and kebabs loaded with spring greens and thick chunks of grilled meat. Big clay bowls full of rice drenched brown with meaty broths or thick with golden eggs or bursting with bright local herbs. There were grains he’d never heard of – and couldn’t pronounce without incidentally making a curse out of a Galahdian staple – and there was so much fish that he thought they could fill the Cygillan.

It was the most vibrant and colorful buffet of food that Noctis had ever seen. Yellow squashes, orange potatoes, red cabbage, and flat browned breads, the whole rainbow of Galahdian cuisine was served up on a long table draped in a mosaic cloth too pretty to eat off of. There wasn’t a dish that matched, every glass or plate or bowl taken from a different kitchen. Yet, no one ever wondered after their dish. Every color was a beacon to each family: purple trays from the Ulrics, nearly black blue glassware from the Ostiums, bright red wood bowls from Crowe – even if she couldn’t make it, she’d demanded they take her colors with them so she could spice the place up in spirit. As if any Galahdian feast could ever lack for spice.

“Still have to save some room for dessert!” Mrs. Ulric crowed from across the table.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Nyx replied.

Libertus gagged somewhere in the din.

Mrs. Ulric was a vibrant and gracious woman. She was constantly on her feet, in spite of Nyx’s insistence in trying to get her to sit down and enjoy the feast herself. Ever the doting hostess though, his mother just couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes, always having an ear open for someone asking to pass the cucumber salad or getting up to refill the plates of flatbreads the instant that only two pieces remained.

Noctis had met her, privately, months prior to the spring banquet. A difficult business, slipping out of the city and beneath the probing noses of the cameras, but where the paparazzi were crafty, his father was clever, and Noctis was honored to meet Nyx’s surviving family in the quiet peace of an island winter.

He had feared it would be harder coming back for spring, especially for a marginally more public event such as this. But it was always hit or miss, whether or not the Crown Prince was recognized beyond the Wall. And even if he was, the Ulrics assured him that he had their favor to roam Galahd unmolested, whether it be by royal dissenters or incognito reporters. And Ulric favor apparently went a long way around the islands.

“So,” Libertus started, just to distract Nyx from making him lose his dinner. “Favorites?”

“You’re really going to make me choose?” Noctis chuckled.

“We’re a competitive people. Whoever wins the Prince’s seal of approval gets bragging rights for generations.”

Noctis snorted and considered the long table dumped over with bursting flavors on rainbow dishes. Nyx described the spring traditions in Galahd as a “screw it, everything goes” kind of ritual. Whatever had been gathering dust in the pantry or had been preserved in ice in the back of the freezer was tossed into every pot and pan and made into some stew or casserole as if it was a carefully crafted family recipe, planned down to the last detail rather than improvised together two nights before serving.

Ignis would be horrified. Or awed. Noctis wasn’t sure which. Probably both. And he would be a far better judge of culinary character than he was. So long as it wasn’t a carrot, it had Noct’s vote.

“It’s a trap, Noct,” Nyx warned, protecting him from any rash decision making with an arm over his shoulders. “Earn the pride of one family, earn the vengeance of every other. Clan wars have started over food like this.”

“Trying to get me to incite an international incident over your grandma’s cooking, Libs?”

“It would make her the happiest woman on Eos.”

“Does anarchy run in the Ostium family?” Noctis asked.

Libertus jerked his chin at Nyx. “We caught it from his.”

“I believe it.”

“Traitor. No dessert for you.”

“I’m telling your mom.”

“Brat child.”

Nyx pulled him to his feet, forcing Noctis to relinquish his lemony-hot drink to Libertus’s protection.

“Sorry!” Noct chirped. “Guess I’m off to be punished for my insolence. Judging later.”

Libertus rolled his eyes, miming the motions for hanging himself with a noose in response to Nyx’s salacious smile. If the gods were good, a man who had eaten as much as he did should not have the appetite for anything else.

Nyx’s neighborhood was set deep inland, away from the full rush of the sea, but the ocean found its safe passages to pool into the natural harbors within the islands. Caves and canyons carried seawater into hidden coves where the local kids could get into trouble. There were small private beaches secreted beneath the hills and wild grottos left untouched save for by tooth and claw.

There was dancing down on the pale peachy sands sloping away from Granny Ostium’s bungalow. The wood-smoke from the grills, with the char of hot spices searing into meats and fresh veggies, mingled with the fine salty mist whispering up from the water. It was colder closer to the limpid waves, a reminder that winter had only just turned its back, and the fickle season could still snap back around at any time. Today though, winter kept walking out to sea, and the sands were just warmed enough for Nyx to take him out to with bare feet.

“Come on, we can work off some of those carbs in time for the dessert buffet.”

“What do you mean _buffet?_ Another one? I thought dessert would be like a plate of cookies and some coffee to recover after all that.”

“You really haven’t learned anything since you got here, huh?”

Oh, he’d learned plenty. A lot of it he’d already known, an entire history of Galahdian culture cultivated from listening attentively to all of Nyx’s stories. It was one thing to imagine them, it was another to experience them first hand.

There were a few other couples on the beach, some parents with children linked by hand between them, splashing at the edges of the shallow waves. There were little lanterns tucked within the porous stones tumbled along the bay, some even floating in the shallows on little paper boats, as much a warning for when it got dark and hard to see as to brighten the spring fever cheer.

It was contagious, for Nyx especially. He drew Noct along a simple, lolling beat somewhere in his own head. The sands were puckered with footsteps from livelier, earlier dances in the day for working up an appetite, but they managed to find their own steps in the rumpled sands.

“Not bad for your first spring in Galahd,” Nyx said. “You know, there’s a little superstition that, the amount you eat at the equinox gets paid back in full in the amount of luck you’ll have the rest of the year.”

Noctis laughed, letting Nyx guide him along his lazy little routine. He was so stuffed that he could barely follow the steps himself.

“If that’s true, I’m going to be the luckiest man in all of Eos.”

“Me too.”

Noctis shuffled up close and wrapped his arms around Nyx’s shoulders, sighing contentedly as Nyx held him even closer. It kept them both from collapsing into a food coma right there on the sands. And with dessert on the way, they had a lot more luck ready to be served.


End file.
